
Class ?^ ? 5 ^1 

Book 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 




froiu a j-ai',ii>.g by E. H. Mhui 



Sherwuod Slitdios, A. i '. 



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X4l^ 



PRESIDENT OF THE CAMEO CLUB OF NEW YORK 
WALDORF-ASTORIA 



ROSE OF THE FLAME 
IMMORTAL 



BY 



ROSE M. DE VAUX-ROYER 

Author of "Soul Shadows,'' "Songs and Sonnets,'' 
"Influence Telepaihique" (published in French), etc. 



Tarn corde quam manu 




THE CAMEO PRESS AND PUBLISHING COMPANY 
NEW YORK 

NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY 



^^e 






Copyright, 1920, by the author 
Rose M. de Vaux-Royer 



Printed in the United States of America 
All rights reserved 



Edition limited to five hundred copies ^ oj which 
this is No.. .4Sil 



For permission to reprint most of the poems included in this volume 
thanks are due to the New York Herald, New York Times, The Overland 
Monthly, Washington News Letter, Nautilus, The California Magazine, 
Munsey's, and various magazines and periodicals in which they first appeared. 



M^v 19 1920 
©aA570172 



IN MEMORY OF MY DEAR HUSBAND 

CLARENCE de VAUX-ROYER 

WHOSE ELOQUENCE IN MUSIC AND GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT 
WERE UNIVERSALLY RECOGNIZED, THIS BOOK IS 

LOVINGLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR 



A WORD IN MEMORY 

For long years I knew Clarence de Vaux-Royer, and 
it was a delight to know him. He had the graces of a 
gentleman and the courtesies of a friend. More than 
this he was an artist, a violinist of exquisite touch, of 
infallible taste, of indefatigible devotion. Often in my 
own home and in the concert halls of Manhattan, I have 
listened to the witchery of his melodious bow ; and only 
music of the highest quality and performed with the 
highest artistry, ever breathed from his beloved violin. 

Clarence de Vaux-Royer was an honor to the musical 
circles of America. Everywhere he held high the ideals 
of his great art. 

Many will miss his friendship and his ministrations, 
now that he has gone on into the Next Chamber of the 
Mystery. We follow him only with happy thoughts in 
his new adventure ; for he is now more alive than ever, 
more free to express the fine melodies of his spirit. 

Edwin Markham 
Staten Island, N. Y., 
February, 1920 



IN MEMORY OF CLARENCE DE VAUX-ROYER 

He whose divining heart and hand knew here 

How from tense chords rapt melodies to win. 
Now draws within some happier unseen sphere 
More golden music from his violin. 

Clinton Scollard. 
iv 



PREFACE 

We slowly learn the language of the hours whose voice 
is hushed. It is not in words, but the silence that ensues 
that bears the conviction of our love; and those who 
have loved deeply have learned many secrets unknown to 
others. The great silences of death and grief are broken 
that others may be comforted. 

In 1896-98 I was a student of Psycho-therafie in 
Paris, and at this time was appointed delegate to the 
capitals of Europe for the Medico-Legal Society of New 
York. Honorary membership was extended to me by the 
French Societe Legal et Medicin and I passed through 
the doors of the Palais de Justice under unusually pleas- 
ant auspices. It was in Paris that I met the happy- 
hearted musical soul, Clarence de Vaux-Royer. 

His devotion to his art — inborn of the spirit — could 
not be exceeded, but of the temperament of Mozart and 
Shelley, he was not strong physically, and his physicians 
had made a forecast of two years for him. (He outlived 
the term by twenty years.) I advised his return to 
America. After six months' absence he wrote me of his 
illness and discouragement in New York and entreated 
my presence. I cabled and went to him on the first 
steamship. La Champagne, in mid-winter. Upon his 
earlier departure from Paris we had experienced a 
wonderful and accurate transmission of thought — tele- 
pathically — with such corroboratory evidence as to make 
it valuable to the scientific world. It w^as published in 
the French Journal " Les Annals des Science Psychique " 



at the request of Dr. Charles Richet of the Academy of 
Medicine. 

What I wish to add of import is that since he has en- 
tered Immortal Life I have received similarly intelligent 
telepathic communication from him. 

We know that the "dead" do not die — that mind 
transcends matter; that no material function or sense is 
called upon to bridge the etheric spaces — any more than 
to solve a mathematical problem; that a law remains a 
law. 

Every day we pray " Thy kingdom come," and when 
the manifestation appears, we often miss the revelation. 
Nearly 2,000 years ago, life in continuity was demon- 
strated to man. Today as yesterday the law is operative. 
"Man is not the offspring of flesh, but of Spirit — of 
Life not of death. Life is of God . . . eternal, self- 
existent, . . . everlasting . . . whom nothing can erase."* 
" Mind never becomes dust." Mind does not inhabit the 
grave ; it is its own power, and cannot be annihilated, for 
God is Mind. 

VERITIES 
There is no night ! 

Who follows the sun's ray 
And travels in its light 

Knows but eternal day. 
There is no death! 

From out the warring strife 
Man's spirit — as Christ saith — 
Will rise to eternal life. 

Rose M. de Vaux-Royer. 
* " Science and Health," p. 289. 

vi 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Man, The Immortal xii 

Rose of the Flame 1 

Deserted Beaches 1 

Dead Days 2 

Islands of Infinity 3 

Butterflies 4 

The Miracle of Spring 5 

To a Canary 6 

In My Summer Garden = . . . . 7 

The Conqueror Worm 7 

Faiths and Creeds 8 

Idolatry 9 

The Valley of Bloom 11 

Unity 11 

In Memory of Elbert Hubbard 12 

Tempest-Tossed 13 

Reverie 14^ 

The Search for Heaven 15 

December Days 16 

Democracy (1917) 17 

The Poets 18 

Dreamer of Dreams 19 

The Passing of a Poet 20 

To Joaquin Miller 21 

A Sketch 22 

The Stars Above the Stars 23 

Consolation 24 

Pipes o' Pan 24 

Longing 25 

vii 



Page 

Cameos 26 

The Mathematician's Passing 27 

Jerusalem (1917) 29 

Springtime 30 

Woman in Marble 31 

Days 31 

Power of Place 32 

An Hour of Mirth 33 

Justice 34 

Wild Roses 35 

Sea Song 36 

Pastels 37 

Little Loves 38 

Query ? 39 

Whither ? 39 

In the Beginning 41 

Divine Desire 42 

Birth of Bermuda 42 

Reflections 43 

To a Boy with Poet-Face 44 

Vanished Leaves 45 

Intermezzo 47 

Transformation 47 

To the Egyptian Sphynx 48 

Echoes 49 

Frailties 50 

Evolution 51 

Woman 52 

High Control 52 

Lighted Windows 53 

At Udaipur 53 

Criticism 55 

Understanding 56 

viii 



Page 

Silhouettes 56 

Spring's Miracle 57 

Dawn 58 

Till Dreams Come True 59 

The Little Country Cottage 60 

To a Bird of Song 61 

La Suicidio 62 

Symbols 62 

Where the Roses Twine 63 

In Memoriam 64 

Departed 65 

To One Passed Beyond 66 

My Heart a Lute 68 

Love's Sunset 69 

Constancy 70 

He Is Risen 70 

The Mulberry-Tree 71 

Then I'll Come Back to You 72 

Loss and Gain 73 

The Immortal Dead 73 

Spring 74 

Fall 74 

The Law 74 

Aux Ames Bien Nee 75 

The Light Beyond 76 

April's Music 76 

Twilight Shadows 77 

All that Perisheth Shall Live 78 

Restoration '<'9 

A Dream 81 

Tributes 83 

A Dream Interview 86 



IX 



THE HARP 

Blow through me, wind of the world divine, 

Gentle or sharp; 
Each chord of the trembling soul is thine — 

I am thy harp. 

Set in the casement of earth I caught 

One starry strain. 
Blow through me, wind of the heavenly thought, 

Again! again! 

(Justice) Wendell Phillips Stafford. 
Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, March 9, 1920. 



ROSE OF THE FLAME 



The Title. — ^Who can gather again the scattered petals of a rose 
and recharge it with fresh perfume? The soul is silent in the 
flower, but manifests itself in man. The flames with which the 
Greeks enveloped and consumed the bodies of the departed, die 
out and are lost; but the flame of life does not die — it is immortal 
— bestowed from the Divine treasure house. 

xi 



MAN, THE IMMORTAL 

A N inner sense appeals and questions why? 
^^TL That you who were so near, so very far 

Appear; even as some luminous distant star 
That burns yet brightly to the mortal eye 
When night and all her radiant hosts pass by; 

Vanquished by dawn, which dims, but cannot mar 

The worlds invisible, nor yet debar 
Your silent place in the eternal sky. 

I know you live {enshrined, vital and warm. 
Within God^s arms enfolded)^ even as I. 

Obscured my Tnsion to discern the form 
Your spirit radiates in realms most high; 

Where birth greets death transmuted from the clay. 
Man, the immortal, holds the flaming ray! 



Xll 



ROSE OF THE FLAME 

(in memory of JOYCE KILMER ) 

ROSE of the flame immortal ! 
Flame from on high; 
Piercing the heavenly portal, 
There let it lie! 

Green grow the graves of passion ; 

Silent the slain ! 
Roses, strewn in sweet fashion, 

Crown hill and plain. 

Heroes, life's wine are spending; 

Drenching the soil ; 
Crimson the flow — unending 

The torture and toil. 

Flowers of passion, burning 

Under blue sky; 
Heart-beats of hope and yearning 

Throb endlessly! 



DESERTED BEACHES 

THERE is no stir in all the atmosphere ; 
A quiet calm is brooding o'er the main ; 
Creation's murmurs do not greet us here 

Where silence throbs its passion and its pain. 

1 



DEAD DAYS 

GHOSTS of the dead days haunt me 
With lustral glow and smile ; 
Old tendernesses taunt me, 

And hold my heart awhile. 
Faint rose-leaves — resurrected 
Like perfumes past — beguile. 

Could we but lure, together. 
Those halcyon days that sing 

Of other times ; and tether 
Renascent powers of Spring 

That gild the sylvan meadow 
With sunlit glimmering! 

In evening's silent spaces 

Hang pictures of the past ; 
Of unforgotten faces 

That enter at Love's fast, 
With their immortal treasure 

Of happiness, dream-cast. 

Dust-shrouded faiths are dying ; 

Deluded their false fears 
Which play on heartstrings, crying 

In spectral chant or tears. 
Oh ! miracle of memory 

That yearns adown the years. 



Of this fine instrument God gives. 
'Tis you that may remember, 

And I that must forget 
The fire from some old ember 

That may be smouldering yet. 
(Dim ghosts of dead days haunt me, 
Vague shadows of regret.) 

ISLANDS OF INFINITY 

NATURE wears at even-while 
Still her sad mysterious smile ; 

Turned the flagons of the vine 
Back to earth — the wasted wine I 

Music penetrates the past 
Faintly, tranquilly at last ; 

And the floating petals fall 
In the sea where slumber all. 

Love and hate and passion's lust 
Kiss, united in the dust. 

Blended, both the fair and wise 
Sleep beneath the watchful skies. 

Softly go ; serenity 

Waits by the untroubled sea ; 

Fair the phantom that is seen 

In these Grecian groves of green. 

Hellas greets you : " Who shall say 

Life is short — dream of a day ! " 



For the Breath — immortal Will — 
Which transports us, ne'er is still. 

Sunsets pass while I repeat 
Nature's secret: — Man's retreat 

In his ageing, endless quest. 
Is not bounded, east or west ! 

Youth with bloom and beauty blent, 
Lit the torch of love, and went 

Dancing into shadowland — 
"Follow after!" his command. 

And this dream-pent path, oh, friend ! 
We must follow to the end. 

Softly go; serenity 
Waits by the untroubled sea. 
On these shores of silvered sheen 
Minstrels chant, of mystic mien. 
Sunset pilots paths to Thee^ — 
Islands of Infinity ! 



BUTTERFLIES 

GOD'S in His temple ! aflame and afloat. 
Butterflies flit in their filmy array ; 
Sailing the fields in a frail fairy boat — 

Tiny aeronauts, here for a day ; 
Man in his grandeur is even as they. 

4 



Simple the service of love and of life — 
Myriad forms of the Infinite mind ; 

Vain is the tempest of warring and strife, 
Soon all resolves to its own and its kind — 

Held in the law of the ages enshrined. 



THE MIRACLE OF SPRING 

I'VE come again ! I've come again ! 
To roam by rock and river, 
To scent the wild anemone 
And set the world a-quiver. 

I burn in heart of bird and bee, 

I temper tides a-flowing. 
And scepter with new majesty 

The flower-blent fields a-blowing. 

I court the canvas of the night- 
Emblazoned beauty ever; 

(Imbedded far from mortal sight. 
The secrets of the Giver). 

From empyrean solitude 

With shafts of light and laughter, 
I paint the great infinitude 

Of blossoms following after. 

Launched on the auras of the air. 
By sunny and waste places, 

Rebirth is hovering everywhere 
In merry joy-lit faces. 

5 



And Spring's rare miracle includes 
This resurrection ; sighing 

On Pan's low pipes her interludes : 
" We live, even after dying ! " 



TO A CANARY 

THOU trilling form of joy! 
O bird, with throbbing throat ; 
The sorcery of thy note 
Is rapture's deep alloy. 

Apostle of ecstasy! 

With flitting yellow wing. 

What is the theme you sing 
In such alluring ke}^.^ 

Quaint gymnast, fleet and free; 

By music's spell enshrined; 

What high melodious mind 
Inspires thy minstrelsy.? 



IN MY SUMMER GARDEN 

OUT in my garden of blossoms and birds — 
Colors of opal and rich Orient — 
Lotus-cupped lilies the mirrored pool girds ; 

Arched by the latticed trees, dreaming, content. 
Rarest of roses grow ; fair Persian dyes ! 

Steeped in the nectar that Lucullus sips. 
Golden and fleeting my summertime flies ; 
Transient its rays as the amber moon dips. 
July 9, 1919. 



THE CONQUEROR WO RBI 

" God made man in His own image, in the image of God mxide 
He him."— Genesis. 

BUT who created thee, thou conqueror, wonn ! 
What need was voiced that thou, too, shouldst appear 
In hideous form of matter animate. 
With power to crumble the deserted throne ? 
Base scavenger of transitory fame, 
Existing where was once invested mind. 
And trembling held as lord of that domain. 

What dim funereal processes are thine. 
Thou tiniest form of law immutable! 
Consuming buried hopes toward greater ends 
Transforming atoms into lowly dust. 
Even empty shells where once have reigned vast powers, 
Thou enterest there to devastate all form 
Reducing all unto thine own, O Worm ! 

7 



Brave forager of unknown darks and depths. 

No mystery remains proof to thy lens ! 

The first and last in germ of life extant ; 

Of form the one eternal to endure. 

There's nothing holds to self its purposed power 

More lasting, omnipresent, than art thou. 

We crown thee king and conqueror of Earth ! — 
This myriad-peopled pedestal, thy throne ! 
Los Angeles, 1890. 



FAITHS AND CREEDS 

MY faiths and creeds about me lie; 
In heart and hand-clasp understood 
By all mankind beneath the sky 
Who seek the universal good. 

The constellations glow on high. 

And play their part with parent sun ; 

We, as the lesser Earth-lights die. 

Turn our unswerving faith toward One. 

Life-weavers, on our wavering way; 

The higher light of mind discerns 
The bright new versions of the day ; 

Leaves justice that which justice earns. 

The comedy of man for man — 

The tragedy of bread and blood — 

The human ocean and its clan, 

That flows back to its source in God. 
8 



Is this the purpose of the race — 

These flesh-crowned pyramids we build? 

Life's aim, greed's wild chaotic chase 
With Earth's eternal moanings filled. 

Where words ascend in labored creeds 
Unto some sacred place — divined — 

Oh, send the demonstrated deeds. 
As incense to the throne enshrined. 

My creeds embrace the common tie 
That binds a broader brotherhood ; 

My faith is founded to supply 
The universal love of good. 



IDOLATRY 

IN the years that grow old — 
In the days that grow dim, 
As the years onward roll — 
It is night without him ; 
Without him it is night in my soul. 

In this darkness of night 

Hangs a pale moon dipped dim ; 

And its wan shadow-light 

Filled with weird thoughts of him 

Shrouds this desolate darkness of night. 

9 



In this last hour of night 

I fashioned and wove 
Him a garment all white 

From the fabric called Love — 
From a love that was strong in its might! 

I bordered and bound 

It with rainbows of Hope 
His form to surround. 

Now blinded I grope — 
For it fell to the soil of the ground ! 

(They were false vows that bound;) 

When the girdle-knot broke, 
It fell to the ground; 

With a start I awoke, 
As it fell to the soil of the ground ! 

I awoke, and 'twas day ; 

The pale moon had gone down ; 
God above! can I pray 

That the night come and drown 
At its dawn this great anguish of day ! 

Will no kind mercy stay — 

Hedge my consciousness round? 

Oh, my God ! can I say — 
Can I say what I found? 

I found that my idol was clay! 



10 



THE VALLEY OF BLOOM 

OH, the depth of fragrance and wealth of blows 
In the flower-kissed valley, where no man goes ; 
A land of God's rare gardening 
Across the river of Ting-Lo-Ting. 

The mountains are blue and amethyst, 

Their sapphire peaks a starry tryst. 
Here Love abroad is wandering 

Beyond the banks of Ting-Lo-Ting. 

What spell of rapture the Iris wreathes 
In vales where Beauty immortal breathes ; 

Elysian fields ! The wild birds sing 

Their song to heaven — near Ting-Lo-Ting. 

When evening comes with scented breeze, 

One prayer is wafted over-seas ; 
And thought goes merrily back to bring 

The vision fair of Ting-Lo-Ting. 

(There is a " Valley of Bloom " in the Orient where the odors 
of flowers are so overpowering in their massed fragrance that tour- 
ists have succumbed and fallen while admiring their natural 
beauty. This section is uninhabited.) 



UNITY 

TWO souls met in the silence ; 
Each bore a flaming star; 
And one was Night and one was Day — 
Both traveling afar. 
11 



Night held aloft her jewels 
In sparkling proud display, 

And flashed her menaced monarch then 
Full in the face of Day. 

Day roused himself from shadow 
And blew his horn with might ; 

Then red and bold the god of gold 
Quenched all the stars of Night. 

And thus alone he traveled — 

A solitary Sun — ■ 
Till Twilight wooed, in winning mood, 

And wed the twain, made one. 



IN MEMORY OF ELBERT HUBBARD 

WHERE trees and blue hills bask 
Under the sun ; 
'Neath the drawn veil we ask 
Where now this one.'* 

Where gone the life that held 

Glory and glee.? 
Give this faint message: spelled 

Its mystery. 

Re-birth a joy shall bring 

Spirit supreme ! 
In its full blossoming 

Back from the dream. 

12 



All life's past conflicts crowned; 

Infinite love — 
Formless — the breach has bound 

Beneath and above. 

Gone to its own again — 

Light to the Flame — 
Soul of the soul in men 

One is His name ! 



TEMPEST-TOSSED 

I WATCHED the low-toned waters beat 
Upon the pebbles at my feet, 
In soothing ripples murmuring sweet 

Of tenderness and love ; 
And placidly the sea so calm 
Coquetted in the sunbeam's charm 
With not a dream of sudden harm 
From burning skies above. 

When lo ! on her untroubled breast 
A mighty, surging, deep unrest 
Unfurled and tossed a haughty crest 

Toward the towering sky ! 
The lightning's eye, 'mid rumbling roar, 
Scanned the wide seething waters o'er. 
And bowed the leaden cloud-line lower. 

Like pennants floating high ! 

13 



With thunderous peal the hghtnlngs flash, 
The heaving breakers rend and crash 
And torrents pour with vengeful lash 

Into bold ocean's bed ; 
The sea climbs shivering up the land, 
In vain to foil the furious hand 
Of the invading tyrant-band 

That signals overhead. 

With swollen bosom river-rent 
She sobs and moans her discontent, 
Till soon — the tempest's fury spent — 

The sun resumes his place; 
Again uniting at the dim 
Horizon-line where wan clouds swim 
Across her bosom's boundary rim 

And there imprints his face ! 



REVERIE 

OLD memories of a thousand things 
Crowd back to haunt my busy brain- 
Where recollection fondly clings — 
Ere sent out to the world again. 

One thought hangs lingeringly on 
The swinging hinge of memor}^ ; 

And places, faces, absent, gone. 
Are floating past me rapidly. 
14 



I seem to stand by grassy mounds — 
Within a porch that westward looks — 

And steep my senses in the sounds 
Of lowing herds and running brooks. 

******* 

Of all the arts, of all the creeds 
And all the logic learned by man, 

There's nothing touches the heart's needs 
As simple forms of nature can. 

And so they come and so they go, 

These thoughts — that kindle new the themes 
That once set our fond hearts aglow — 

Live now in reverie and dreams. 



THE SEARCH FOR HEAVEN 

LAST night my soul rose on the foam 
Of a great wave beneath the dome 
Of all creation ; rose to see 
Age-ripened hosts in agony. 
Seeking a heaven ; 

Saw forms and faces early known. 
From which a haloed radiance shone ; 
As though their inner vision lent 
To life new meanings God had sent 
From His high heaven. 

I saw within a field a pair 
Of workers ; — labor checked their prayer 
15 



In this His vineyard — called to key 
The homelier things to harmony ; 
And was this heaven? 

Here one whom Hate's foul venom fanned 
Turned from Love's way the great Will planned ; 
Weary, unmerciful the breath — 
An ecstasy perverted — death ! 
(For Love is heaven.) 

I reached across the black abyss — 
The chasm 'twixt that world and this — 
Called him by name of magic, " friend " ! 
And watched the light and shadow blend, 
And there found heaven. 



DECEMBER DAYS 

THE bleak wind-minstrel tones the blast, 
As Winter tints the wonder sky. 
And saddens the discerning eye, 
Haunted by Autumn's ardor, passed. 

The flickering leaves low fallen lie, 
Remnants of glory, faded, gone. 
The naked boughs we gaze upon 

Point mercilessly toward the sky. 

No sweet-souled rapture of a bird 
Resounds again from leafy bower; 
Its song is hushed, and struck the hour 

When Winter speaks the final word. 

16 



His seal is on all Nature's moods: 

And deep within his silent breast 

Her burning secret, held in rest ; 
Over all a solemn silence broods. 

The cricket's voice, the tree-toads " chirr " 
Are hushed ; the katydids that stray 
Through twilight's echoed ecstasy 

Are banished. New enchantments stir 

The wood ; King Frost has blown his blast 
And gathered all his courtiers round. 
The little things of air and ground 

Have vanished, each, its fate forecast. 

Soft snow-flakes shroud the shivering earth, 
And under Winter's garment creep 
Our little loves, to lie asleep — 

Waiting the gentle Spring's new-birth. 
(Read by Edwin Markham at the Cameo Club Banquet, 1916.) 



DEMOCRACY {1917) 

(to dr. J. GARDNER S3IITH) 

WHEN the great above and the small below 
Are levelled by a fair God's throw ; 
When mothers of men, at the bugle's blow, 
Give the best they have to give ; 
17 



When the gun and the sword and the steel that rings, 
In the clash of the savage strife that stings, 
Are laid in the dust of forgotten things — 
Then democracy will live ! 

With death and despair must the martyrs meet 
Till dawn brings a respite in night's dark defeat. 
Bright as the stars on the heights, fair and sweet, 
Shines the spirit of God's man ! 

Caught like a shred on the edge of the world ; 
Battled and scarred, like a leaf he is whirled — 
Plaything of time — to eternity hurled ! 
(Mighty the plea and the plan.) 

Shrouded in sorrow the shadow is cast ; 
Echoes roll on as the victors sweep past ; 
A thousand years hail this day, here at last. 
To herald democracy! 

(From The New York Herald, October 21st.) 



THE POETS 

WE are the weavers, monarchs of might! 
Dreamers of dreams and prophets of light. 
Singing the Song Everlasting, which rings 

Out on the void like an echo that brings 
Courage and hope in the world-weary strife. 
Rich with the romance — the red blood of life. 

18 . 



We sing of the Past that has ripened, grown strong; 

For our heart is a heart of passion and song. 
Thought upon thought we have built, full and free, — 

Philosophy, art, in their complexity. 
We are the product of all that has been 

Brought from the crucible ; Beauty must win ! 

From the dim heaven and from the deep hell, 

Transfigured, on the empyrean we dwell ; 
With the fire and the flame — unkempt and unshorn 

Our threnodies rise to the high hills of morn, 
'Mong the minarets ; poised like a bird in its flight 

Come we, the Titans of magic and might. 
The old gods are greying ; the faithful and few 

Will worship forever their shrine ; and the new. 
From the fire of their fury and dreaming divine 

Shall create a new Athens to shimmer and shine! 



DREAMER OF DREAMS 

OH, hero of a bygone day ! 
Oh, lover of the songs unsung ! 
We cherish thee with thoughts among 
Our choicest in life's Litany. 

And thus I fashion these like flowers, 
Woven in wreaths of amethyst 
And rose, to tint the wayside tryst, 

And mark with music lonely hours. 

19 



For in the heart's deep place there rings 
A happier note that poets find — 
Strong faith in self and in mankind — 

The radiant way to higher things. 

Divined beyond the measured word, 
A message to the inner soul — 
A harp that vibrates to its goal — 

Where friendship's mist is mixed and stirred. 

Fulfilment waits the shadow cast ; 

So child of faith — dreamer of dreams, 
Though vague thy vision, that which seems, 

Bursts into being, thine at last ! 



THE PASSING OF A POET 

(Upon scanning a collection of Madison Cawein) 

WE welcome the words of one now dead ; 
And ponder the pathway he did tread- 
In these uncut pages of books unread — 

And would that the world might listen 
To one who gave of his finer sight ; 
Who followed a vision of higher light 
To fathom the soul in its chastened might 
And nature with beauty christen. 

The images woven within remain ; 
The joy of his joy, the pain of his pain ; 
The flow of the tears, like the drip of the rain- 
Or a voice in the night that is calling 
20 



Through the soundless calm of an empty room ; 
(A shuttle that's stilled when spent in the loom) ; 
A voice vibrant beyond the tomb — 

When the twilight shadows are falling. 

What is your message, oh friend, gone forth ? 
To realms of Israfel — ^bidden from birth — 
Poet, who passed by the portals of Earth, 

Seeking the wisdom of sages ! 
Falter nor fail not ! song is reborn ; 
One final cadence of agony drawn — 
Fraught with the rapture of death ! a new dawn ! 

Linked in the law of the ages. 



TO JOAQUIN MILLER 

(In response to his last poem " At Final Parting") 

HE lived true-souled to nature; gave 
His life to modeling in thought; 
The rhythm of the wind and wave 

Were moods wherein this monarch wrought. 

Nature his God ; he stood aloof. 

Pregnant with all that makes men ; this 

And more, — the poet's insight — proof 
That simple ways are ways of bliss. 

His final cry — fine soul ! for man 

Must ring forever as to-day. 
He knew the secret of God's plan ; 

He gained the great finality ! 



But no, there is no first nor last ! 

Man comes and goes and comes again; 
Form cannot serve to hold him fast, 

For spirit rules its own domain. 

And so a brother did but pass 
Within the shadow ; to our eyes 

No more revealed. The flowering grass 
Returns to earth: its beauty dies 

In its own season. Essence lives. 
And blooms again the coming year. 

And so our growth goes on, and gives 
"Life after life" in some new sphere. 



A SKETCH 

(to an unseen poet) 

AND are you tall — and somewhat slim and slender.'^ 
A mind wherein moods rhythmic words engender.'' 
Falling darkly once the hair — 
But the lighted face is fair, 
With the old-time gracious tone and tender. 

I would, if I could, paint a faithful picture ; 
But you — impish-like — evade a mental fixture ; 

Yet I fain would here reveal 

What no rogue of time can steal ; 
'Tis mt/ vision of the deeper inner mixture. 

22 



Limpid notes, rose-bloom reflections transcendental; 

Dreams of daring in a mind not sentimental ; 
True as arrow's aim e'er pointed, 
Nature's heart with hope annointed, 

So are you, hke truth, unchanging, rare and gentle. 

Is't the opal's iridescence that foretelleth? 

Deeper meaning than mere words portray, indwelleth ! 

Would that distances were slain : 

Bridged by ether's mystic chain — 
For to meet you face to face all doubt dispelleth. 



THE STARS ABOVE THE STARS 

(to EDWIN MARKHAm) 

THE gods may grey, but never grow old ; 
Your monarch mind with its flint at play 
Strikes from dull earth a starry ray 
That warms the heart of man, grown cold. 

Your flame-wrought rhapsodies resound 
With chords of tenderness and might; 
They sing with stars at the gates of night ; 

They touch the morning's rosy round. 

The future will your song rehearse 
Down all the misty shores of time ; 
You build the dream of earth sublime. 

Oh, architect of mighty verse ! 



23 



CONSOLATION 

(to ELLA WHEELER WILCOx) 

LIFE is all beautiful ! God, 
Man, tree, universe! 
Hush ! Lest we tread on the sacred things ; 
Things that recur, like the memories of the dead ; 
The inarticulate murmurings and meanings 
Of life at its early inception — with 
The soul in its spring. Form and sound 
Are not life, if devoid of the force where imprisoned 
Lies the source of re-birth — Resurrection ! 
Even through tears and sadness and death ! 
All growth comes through travail and sorrow; 
Dead leaves, bruised and brown, cover the sod — 
But underneath, the violets crave new birth ! 

(New York, 1916.) 



PIPES O' PAN 

AUTUMN'S here and temps du Nord 
Pour their chilling blasts abroad ; 
Glowing tapestries of leaves 

Now the vagrant wood-wind weaves. 

Nymphs come forth from reedy pools 
Driving butterflies in schools ; 

And the fauns that sleep by day, 
Roam at night to hear Pan play ! 



Beneath mellow moonbeams, he 

Pipes his tender melody ; 
And the shadows to and fro 

Sway, enchanted by its flow. 

All the laughing painted things — 
Flower-faced, with fairy wings — 

Come to bid poor Pan farewell 
Ere stem Winter throws his spell. 

All fair things will hide away 

While the Frost-king holds his sway. 
Dreamer thou of dreams of men, 

Sleep till they return again ! 

Quiet on earth's loving breast 

These bright forms shall fall and rest. 
Waiting Pan's gay pipes to sing 

Welcome to a new-born Spring. 



LONGING 

I AM weary, tired of waiting, gazing West where you 
have gone ; 
Weary of the fast and feasting since you left ; 
And I miss the tender touch and joyous welcome of the 
morn; 
For the hours are charged with memories bereft. 

S5 



When I walk among the roses, there I fain would meet 
your eyes ; 

Or within the sun's gold rays behold your head ; 
See the warmth of love's own light before my vision rise, 

As I fold you to my sad heart — comforted. 

The stars above shed loveliness in lights that flash and 
gleam ; 
Across the scented grass I breathe a prayer. 
Through the music of the meadows flows the iridescent 
stream 
Past the voices of the night and gray mists' glare. 

Oh, I would that you were with me, that I could touch 
your hand; 
Could hold you close before my dazzled eyes ; 
Could call you mine till daybreak — call you from the 
shadowland — 
The land where love immortal never dies ! 



CAMEOS 

CLEAR chiseled, cut upon the crest 
Of life's reflected joy and woe ; 
Man carves within his secret breast 
A self-created Cameo. 

Thy thought creates thy prison place. 
Fair architect of heaven or hell ; 

By some fine hand or divine grace 
Rare tracings in the shadows tell 

26 



Of Ideals wrought in land of dreams, 
That we shall welcome face to face 

On some far shore that fades and seems 
Our fairest treasures to embrace. 

Incessant flows the Power that thrills 
Through form of lily and of rose ; 

Burst from the bonds of lesser wills 
We stand, each, clear-cut Cameos ! 



THE MATHEMATICIAN'S PASSING 

(Read before the Psychological Section of the Cameo Club, 
New York City, February 25, 1916) 



O 



LD Dusty-bones he died last night — 

Left " plus " and " minus " in pitiful pHght— 
For he was " divided " from self in his flight. 



He died of " figures in the head " ; 

For that is where they found him — dead — 

In the counting-house, whence his soul had fled. 

" Spaces and lines have never lied," 

Said this Doctor-of -digits, with pardonable pride, 
Who passed by the Borderland undenied. 

Spaces and lines for every class. 

Furnish their measure for all who pass ; 
Even our Globe is a circling mass. 
27 



Circles and angles — it whirls around, 

Giving us bearings as figured and found — 
Diameter by circumference bound. 

But he escaped and went his way ; 

Whence or whither — now who shall say ? 
Thus they go from us every day. 

Spirit and body were never one ! 

(Spirit the builder of body begun.) 
Thought will reach to the farthest sun. 

Spirit, released, floats freely in space. 
Drawn to its destined ethereal place. 
By laws as fixed as the Sphinx's face. 

Phantom-like, here, our deeds are filed. 

Burnished and brilliant and sense-beguiled. 
The One Great Wonder looked and smiled. 

Captured by Death and made his own; 
Given new lease in the upper-zone 

Of the undefined, unsought, unknown ! 

Measures and weights — what can they tell.? 
Or figures, of one now gone — Oh, well — 
To the place where souls are said to dwell.? 

No answer comes from out the tomb — 
No ray to light the empty room 

Where Science ponders in the gloom. 

Greater the wisdom than of man 

Ruling the magical works that ran ; 
Will He not finish what He began? 
28 



Risen again, this soul last night 

Stood in the gloaming, pale and white. 
In an iridescent shape of light. 

And he tried to tell what his presence told : 
That there is no end for the Godly-souled ; 
That death is life in a finer mold. 

Life, with its forms and changes spent ; 
The hour-glass turns with Time's intent — 
Inverted bears its eternal bent. 

Forward and backward, in and out, 
The juxtaposition we worry about — 
Life and death — lead a merry rout! 



JERUSALEM {1917) 

JERUSALEM! Oh, Jerusalem! 
Adown thy storied street 
Resounds the might of freedom's arms — 
The tramp of marching feet. 

Oh, Sacred City of Solomon ! 

Of faiths and creeds and war ; 
The Cross has conquered the Crescent and 

The Mosque of old Omar. 

The sun shall rise all-glorious 

Again upon the scene. 
As rose the Star of Bethlehem 

That hailed the Nazarene. 
29 



And we will hear the cheering chant 

Of angels from afar, 
And know the hero-souls of earth, 

Have risen in peace from war. 

Jerusalem ! Oh, Jerusalem ! 

Path where the patriarchs trod ; 
Still shines the Star of Bethlehem 

Above the City of God. 

SPRINGTIME 

SPRING is here, 
With its cheer! 
And the storm's cold blast 
Is lessened at last ; 
And the bars 
Of Winter's wars 
Are thrown down. 

About the town 

Violets bloom, and on the hill 
Dandelions flock and fill 
Old waste places ; in the lane 
Pussy-willows bud again; 

And on mossy woodland banks 
Pale arbutus files and ranks 
With the lone anemone ; 
And the birds from every tree 
Trill their mirth in maddest glee. 
Chirping loud in gayest cheer 
" Spring is here ! " 
30 



WOMAN IN MARBLE 

La Femme Fro'ide 

(to ADELAIDE JOHXSON) 

THIS, the fine substance, cold and clear, was lent 
To art — transmuted by the fire that warmed 

A dual being into beauty ; formed 
The line and curve with human passion blent. 
Then Love, the sculptor, with a high content 

Created woman ! From the depths he called 

Her name! unsealed by magic, sense-enthralled, 
Her soul shone through the marble, smiled, then went 
To other trysts ; but time can ne'er erase 

The artist-touch triumphant, nor efface. 

Ephemeral and exquisite it seems 
The spirit calling subtly, through the years — 
A radiant calm that cancels joy or tears — 

To live with Beauty in the land of Dreams. 



DAYS 

STILL as a dream the western sea. 
That bears upon its breast 
The light of one lone star. To me 
Its quivering sheen speaks longingly 
Of days that were ; with prophecy 
Of those to come as best. 
31 



Hung like a white rose, sails the moon 

Above the silent sea. 
A million lights encircle June ; 
Harps, hidden, strum their love-mad tune, 
And myriad fire-flies dance and swoon. 

While I sit silently. 

And count as beads days gone to rest. 

Strung in a rosary ; 
Each bead a prayer — a soul confessed — 
Gone to its setting in the v^'est 
Where glad hand-greetings wait. The best 

Of days are yet to be ! 

Oh, spirit of the singing sea. 

Light of the lingering West ! 
Bring back the loved of memory 
That bind our hearts in constancy 
And bear us through eternity ! 

The days to be are best ! 

POWER OF PLACE 

WHERE are the men who crave for place and power? 
Who cry aloud for their lost heritage? 
Nothing is lost that may not be regained ; 
(Except that inner shrine be desecrate — 
The soul's sweet sense purloined to other ends 
Than building. ) " Man is his own star ! " 
Achieving character that will resound 
To credit or discredit ; a few years 
Allotted here upon his deathless way. 

3^ 



True power and glory ring forever on 
Adown the dusky pathway of dim graves, 
And fortify — though aeons pass — the deeds 
Which proclaim man immortal, to his time. 
So memory, both merciful and kind. 
Finds niches for her loved and long revered. 
But Nature's immortality, not thus 
Established, comes and goes in forms, 
Even as the blades of grass or leaves of trees. 
Empowered with divine self-consciousness 
And will to be, to live on endlessly 
Beyond time limitations, or flesh-throes 
Of pain and pleasure — bidden by the sense. 
All things become perfected thus in time 
And man's high place awaits him subject to 
His conscious effort ; one with the Supreme ! 



AN HOUR OF MIRTH 

(At the Cameo Club Bcanquet) 
/ said of laughter: It is mad: What doeth it?" — Eccl. I. II 

LET laughter lighten care awhile. 
And mirth sit at the feast. 
And happiness the sense beguile, 
With beauty sans the beast. 

Here hope our horoscope has cast. 
That we should love each other. 

Each " Cameo," from first to last. 
Just wisely " as a brother." 
33 



And should jou step on slippery ground, 
With Cupid to command it — 

You're not the first — just look around 
And see how others stand it ! 

Life has its seasons ; times to weep 
And mourn, and dream thereafter ; 

But let us ever try to keep 
Our fill of love and laughter. 



JUSTICE 

" We lie in the lap of an immense intelligence, which makes us 
organs of its activities, and receivers of its truth. When loe dis- 
cern justice, when we discern truth, loe do nothing of ourselves 
but allow a passage to its beams." — Emerson. 

I AM the Voice of human souls ; 
I am the Music of the night ; 
I am the Thought that God controls ; 
I am the Power that makes for Right. 

I am the chosen force that frees — 
That sends abroad in kindlier tone 

The world's deluded harmonies, 

Fearless and first to seek mine own. 

The soul is but a sounding board 

For rhythm ; or by vain misuse. 
May vibrate to a common horde 

Of dissonant chords — jangled abuse 



Of this fine instrument God gives. 

Oh, let us seek the true and brave ! 
And knoAv within each soul there lives 

The same desire our own hearts crave. 



WILD ROSES 

(to ELLA M. franklin) 

WILL you come some morn to the old world's edge, 
Where the dew lies damp on the moss-growTi ledge, 
And the wind-flower whispers unceasingly 
To the zephyrs that murmur caressingly, 

And look and listen ? For there you'll find 
In a wonderful fairy nook enshrined 
Queen Beauty abloom in a wild-rose fane. 
Singing so softly her rare refrain : 

" Rose ! Wild-rose of the wind and fire. 

Born to bloom for an hour or day ; 

Breathing 3^our beauty through root and clay 
Revealing God's deep desire." 

Rose ! Wild-rose ! Sweet memory sings 

And re-awakens the voiceless years ; 

Joy and heart-ache, tenderness, tears ; 
As a strain in the wilderness rings 

And quivers and dies — so life will close ; 

Fade as petals fade in the air ; 

But spirit is dwelling everywhere : 
The spirit of life and the rose. 

35 



SEA SONG 

ON the river ! On the river ! 
Sea-craft sail and rock and quiver, 
Floating pennants — color patches; 
Lorelei with lute sing snatches 
To the neriads 'neath the waters 
Where the wavelets shine and shiver. 

Willow branches wildly blowing, 
In reflected beauty showing 
Wind-turned leaves of grey and green 
Shimmering in golden sheen ; 
And the trailing lotus-lilies 
Mingle with the sedge-grass growing. 

'Twas a day like this I found her. 
With the sea spray swirling round her 
In the surging singing reaches 
Of the waves on glistening beaches ; 
And her soul was like the sunlight ; — 
Iridescent glory crowned her. 

With the summer's wane and going, 
I confessed the deep love growing ; 
Told her of man's highest passion 
In the oft repeated fashion ; 
Held her as a jewel precious, 
Under starry heavens glowing. 



36 



But she vanished ; morning called her 

Back to God, who had enthralled her ; 

Left my soul to solitude, 

Love turned cheerless, heart laid nude. 

Here I wait to follow after 

To the heaven where He installed her. 

O'er the River ! O'er the River ! 
From the rainbow world a-quiver ; 
Lo ! a Boatman comes for me ; 
Sails the ship of Destiny ! 
Into Shadowland he passes — 
To the presence of the Giver 1 



PASTELS 

THE day is dark, and gray the moor ; 
I stand beside the open door 
Of an old house, known long before. 

Upon its well-remembered stoop 

The tangled grape-vines twine and droop ; 

And at the sight fond memories troop. 

Gray sand-dunes slumber restlessly. 
Beyond, the deep and silent sea 
Lies, boundless as eternity. 

I step within the open door ; 
An empty cradle on the floor, 
A vacant chair, is all its store. 
37 



No faces press the window-pane, 

No merry voices ring again 

These barren walls that wait in vain. 

No magic can resuscitate 

The passing years that soon or late 

Takes each its toll beyond the Gate. 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ « 

And still it stands, remote; with wild 
Sweet-briar thorns about it piled, 
Where once I walked — a little child. 



LITTLE LOVES 

LITTLE Loves are lasting; 
Love of beauty, love of flowers. 
Childhood's fleet and happy hours — 
Soon the heart goes fasting. 

Little loves are given 

That with the worn world's increase 
We may seek our heart's surcease 

In the old love's leaven. 

Faster time goes winging ; 

Cherish memory as we must; 

Time, the tyrant, turns to dust 
All but love's low singing. 



38 



QUERY? 

OH what Is glory and what is fame 
And what the worth of a saintly name? 
When all is resolved to whence it came. 

The world as critic is tardy and tame ; 
The world is raw, and it taints of shame ; 
But — who is the world? and who is to blame? 



WHITHER? 

(in ME3I0RY OF ELBERT HUBBARd) 

There was the Door to which I found no key, 
There was the Veil through which I could not see; 

Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee 
There was — and then no more of Thee and Me. 

— Omar Khayyam. 

THE ceaseless centuries 
Roll on, roll on ! 
No word returns from these. 

The dead and gone ! 
No clue is wafted back 

To us forlorn. 
From the far vanished track 
Beyond the morn ! 

Darkness enfolds us round, 

Dim grows the night ; 
Doubts that enwreath the ground 

Rise in their might! 



Whence passed the soul of him? 

This soul supreme 
That haunts the vision dim ; 

Was it a dream? 

Flesh is the form which life 

Inhabits, holds ; 
Sin-interwoven, strife 

Remodels, moulds. 
Are all earth's strivings lost 

Since life began ? 
Must man, then, pay the cost? 

Futile the plan ! 

Out of pale shimmering 

Born into Light, 
Back to dull glimmering 

Gone into night! 
Oh, Mystery ! the mask 

That veils our sight ; 
Grant thou the prayer we ask : 

Fathom man's flight! 

Show us the place we seek, 

Land of our lost! 
May we his soul bespeak ? 

Him that has crossed? 
Voice from the mist of dream. 

Oh, tell us where 
Vanished our loved that seem 

Passed into air ! 

40 



IN THE BEGINNING 

{" God spoke and the luorld ^ms horn! ") 

STAR-MIST— a radiant glimmer! 
(Before the birth of man;) 
An opalescent shimmer, 
A form — and life began. 

The World was born insistent 
As the unseen fountain springs ; 

And Adam, non-resistant. 
Awakened woman brings 

With Earth's new dawning ; woman — 
Soul of the crystal stream 

Of life — mysterious, human, 
Drawn from the wonder-dream. 

Adown the years of glory. 

By field of asphodels, 
Love loiters ; transitory 

His breath where beauty dwells. 

Parts in the Play of Shadows 
They come and vanish — sleep 1 

Pale Psyches from dim meadows 
Their poppy-vigils keep. 



41 



DIVINE DESIRE 

(" Seek ye first the Kingdom ivithin, and all things shall be 
added thereto") 

^rr^IS not through unknown ways man rises higher, 
I But by some kindly grace to friend or kin ; 
Born from the deep recesses bared within 

The soul's quick comprehension, and desire 

To reach the lofty height that truths inspire ; 
To sing with morning stars above the din. 
And herald a new brotherhood ; to win 

The common kingdom — light its altar fire. 

Oh, Heaven-bound summit ! Thy vast peaks arise 
As thought, that interpenetrates and flows 
Incessantly, beyond life's pallid woes ; 

Beyond the little days of Time, that flies ; 

Beyond the grave — the grave of blinded eyes, — 
Reflecting what infinitude bestows. 



BIRTH OF BERMUDA 

(child of the sea) 

THE Earth arose ! the Sea 
Stood rigid, calm and still 
Beneath the panoply 

Of God's high heaven. A thrill 
From yonder star to me 

Brought life's fair, holiest fill ; 
42 



Brought you — Love's agony ! 

Mind, body, soul and will 
United hold life's history ; 

Its promise to fulfill 
Its mission and its mystery. 



(In Bermuda, 1900.) 



REFLECTIONS 

I KNOW a place within the deep 
And dewy woods where crickets " cheep " ; 
The paths are carpeted with sleep, 

And moonlight flows 
On all around. The pixy elves 
Dance in the dusk among themselves, 
As in the flower-hearts each one delves 
Mid blooms of rose. 

One bright star in the quiet sky 
Turns truant from its sphere on high. 
To cast a glimmer lovingly 

In woodland streams ; 
And there in shine and shimmer lies — 
Reflecting heaven in new disguise — 
To light the way for faery eyes 

Where Beauty dreams ! 



43 



TO A BOY WITH POET-FACE 

POET, with flower-face, 
Gladsome with glee; 
• Soul, with a winsome grace 
Buoyant and free ! 
Beauty will list to thee ; 

Thy fair mind holds 
Shadows of mystery 
The muse enfolds. 

Where dim ideals dwell 

Vaguely, it seems. 
The veil is torn to tell 

Truth lives in dreams. 
Voice of the wonder-world! 

Faint forms of earth — 
Spirit and mist-empearled^ — 

Song gives them birth. 

All the sweet, sentient things. 

Whispering, sad; 
And the wild-bird that sings 

With joy gone mad. 
Moonbeams, and music's stress, 

Starlight and strife. 
Temper with loveliness 

The poet's life. 



44 



VANISHED LEAVES 

(to MRS. HEKRY VILLARD) 

IN the old deep woods, 
With its changeful moods. 
And sounds that never cease, 
The chill winds blow 
A crimson flow 
Of leaves in the roadway's crease. 

They flutter away 

Through the livelong day. 
In wavering shapes and shades, 

(Their duty done). 

To Oblivion — 
Or rest in the murmuring glades. 

They vied with Spring's 

Gay colorings ; 
But Autumn's ardent breath 

Bore the fair things born 

Of the Summer's morn, 
To the twilight's cavern — death. 

With ceaseless change 

They roam and range 
Like formless fleeting things, 

Or stir the wood's 

Calm solitudes 
With a sound like beating wings. 

45 



They fall once more 

On the forest floor 
In a sleep of death or dream ; 

Or turn in the track 

To wander back 
To their place in Nature's scheme. 

As the dim tides flow 

That bade them go 
On the waves of the wilderness ; 

The veins that thrilled 

Once ruby filled, 
Cling to earth and its cold caress. 

The shadows fall 

And cover all 
Their loveliness from me ; 

Still they haunt my heart 

In their lonely part 
As they lie released and free. 

But the burning fire 

And the warm desire 
Of spring shall bring rebirth. 

There is no death 

For the living breath 
And the vanished forms of earth. 



46 



INTERMEZZO 

LONG slanting lines upon the hills betray 
Declining hours where dusky Night meets Day 
And Summer blithely treads beneath the boughs 

Of trees red-ripe in fruitage ; she allows 
A last fond look where these her children stood, 

Ere Autumn claims a foster-motherhood; 
Warm, languorous-limbed, pale Summer glides away, 
Lost in the tawny touch of Autumn's sway. 



TRANSFOFMA TION 

THE sound of the falling waters 
Is music to the ear ; 
The dance of dawn on the tip of morn 
When the clouds hang violet-clear. 

Where the stars of God have vanished — 

White cities of the skies — 
And golden-red from his gorgeous bed 

King Sol's wide wings arise. 

There, shining from the shadow^s 

Lie the shores of Earth, mist-gowned ; 

The green washed wave and deep sea-cave — 
Man's kingdom, emerald crowned. 

The sound of the laughing waters 
And the surge of a deep unrest ; 

'Neath the cold and slime of the Winter-time 
Bides Spring in her beauty drest. 

47 



TO THE EGYPTIAN SPHYNX 

LOST hope and hunger and despair 
Of centuries are chiseled there ! 
Massive, inscrutable, outborne 
From man's own mind to conjure on ; 
Created soulless, without thrill 
Of things designed by divine will ; 
Raised to the heights of finite power, 
Fashioned to fit the ages. Dower 
Of mortal might ; voiceless and free 
From aught save the dread destiny, 
To pose forever; centuries drear 
And changeless — without smile or tear ; 
Nor human touch nor taunt can bare 
The silent history hidden there. 
Oh, mound of mystery, stony face ! 
Wert thou the ruler of some race 
Long passed to dissolution's tomb. 
Emblem of everlasting gloom ? 
(Do cubes and squares portray the part 
That thou hast ever held to art ? ) 
A monument to memory. 
Or tribute to geometry ? 

Above thee marched Orion's bands ; 

Pale Pleiades twinkled o'er thy sands ; 

And here Arcturus sought at night 

To cast thy shadow in his light. 

Unmoved thou art — though worlds go wrong- 

48 



Before creation's passing throng ; 
Immune from pain and pleasure, free 
From all the powers of necromancy. 
The silence of the ages stares 
From thy unseeing eyes ; the cares 
Of nations — midnight wail of babes — 
Reach not thy cold mute heart ; the slaves 
Of commerce, rulers of the world, 
Beat at thy breast ; back to them hurled 
That which they gave, and only that ; 
Where thou, stern shape, impassive sat 
As sentinel to the centuries ! 



ECHOES 

OH, time is fleet, 
And laughter sweet, 
When Autumn's leaves are sere ; 
But the old, old chime 
Of true love's time 
Can never grow less dear. 

In the frolic of fate 

There are many who wait 
To gather the brightest and best, 

While their beautiful Day 

Is dancing away 
Down the golden glow of the west. 

49 



Somewhere above 

Or below, with love, 
And a true heart's happy cheer, 

From the South or the North 

Your call will bring forth 
An echo of faith or of fear. 

Where the shadows meet 

In the loveland sweet, 
There the music-makers dwell. 

With the harmonies 

That hold the keys 
Of life in a magic spell. 



FRAILTIES 

REJOICE O faiths of yester-morn. 
The sun has risen again ; 
And vanity meets not your scorn 
Within her world of men. 

Necessity bends each to each ! 

Beginnings serve the end 
As life serves death ; thought waits on speech. 

And fashion finds its friend. 

In symboled form we walk the earth. 

And welcome man as brother. 
Thro' tears and prayers, and death and birth. 

We claim " We love each other ! " 
50 



But sad to say man loves but self, 
And worships where he must; 

He sells his soul for punch and pelf, 
And settles — with the dust! 

So all his days are sorrow. 

His cup the lot of men ; 
But in some bright to-morrow 

He must be " born again." 



EVOLUTION 

OUT from the soil and the dust and sod. 
Drawn from the source of eternal things ; 
Formless and fleshless — a breath from God — 

Heaven-empowered with light and wings ; 
Up from the earth the lilies nod, 

Down from the heavens the skylark sings. 

Each in its orbit of color and sound. 

Holding its secret and melody ; 
Born from the silence where Beauty profound 

Fashions the blossoms for fruit of the tree ; 
Weaving invisible waves, far around. 

Wafting sweet visions and music to me. 

Man, far-famed, with the host of men. 

Loves and rejoices forever to be; 
Faltering he goes — returning again — 

As the billows flow back embraced by the sea ; 
Life at the centre, aglow, must then 

Surge soul-laden eternally. 
51 



WOMAN 

I AM the mother of the Ages ! 
I held man's fate and fashioned it all fair, 
Both body and the mind alight therein ; 
Made man again in His own Image — ^blessed; 
And taught this mind to speak words all aglow 
With light and life and love and fire and warmth ; 
And nourished him and raised his form to fame, 
And placed him where the strong earth-currents meet; 
This primal first-born impulse called " my son ! " 
And as his tender years to manhood grew, 
And I, still mother in my beating breast, 
Did penance do each day within my heart ; 
I heard his cry as cry of my own flesh. 
And saw his shame In shame wrought to my sex ! 



HIGH CONTROL 

THE dreams that all our slumbers fill, 
Are shadows from a higher will ; 
The deeds which we aspire to do. 

Are unseen forces filtering through. 
We serve as forms for mind's repose 
And action, like the budded rose. 



52 



LIGHTED WINDOWS 

(to dr. fraxk crane) 

You have sent afar from your lofty height, 
Into the fevered shades of night, 
A message that mellows the soul of men, 
A song that is echoed again and again. 

Out from the silence your symbols weave 
Hope for the hopeless hearts that grieve ; 
Light for the unknown endless years, 
Born from the mist of the sun and tears. 

Back of the song the singer lives ; 
Back of the gift the hand that gives ; 
Sending a radiance near and far 
Into the years from the days that are. 

Love triumphant is yet to be, 
Lifting the soul of humanity. 
From these windows the light will shine 
Outward forever — the Light Divine! 



AT UDAIPUR 

(to COLIX CAMPBELL COOPER) 

A RADIANCE crowns the silent hills : 
The mosques of morning open stand ; 
A reach of sky-line throbs and thrills 
And trembles through the land. 
53 



The miracle that Dawn creates 
Now sends its roseate glow afar, 

To fire the ruby in the gates 
And light the Temple bar. 

At Agra, past the burning sands, 

By towers of Siva flashing red, 
Upon the banks of Jumna stands 

The Taj ; built for one dead. 

Shah Jahan lies beneath the stone 
Of Taj Mahal,* the Palace Tomb. 

Forever has his spirit flown — 
Burst from the darkened room ! 

The Emperor searches far and wide ; 

By sacred waters lifts his prayers ; 
He seeks his favorite Mumtaz bride. 

Long buried. Unawares 

Her soul has risen with the dawn : 
No temple, mosque, or marble tomb 

Can bind the life that is inborn. 
As light escapes the gloom 

Her spirit broke the prison-bars ; 

Even as the new-blown flowers break — 
Take shape, and shine beneath the stars — 

Spring from the earth, awake. 

* The Taj Mahal, Agra, was built by the Emperor Shah Jahan 
in 1648 for his favorite wife, Mumtaz-i-Mahal. Both were buried 
therein. 

54 



Bathed in the moonbeam's breath, astir, 
She welcomes those who this way go, 

(The legend told at Udaipur) 
That all who pass may know. 



CRITICISM 

^^ Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar 
of: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter." — ■ 
Isaiah. 

AWAKE ! The world's new age needs heart ! 
Combined with purpose and strong mind to-day 
For local justice! Puritanic sway! 
" Pure food " is offered now at any mart, 
Except those choicer stuffs, that play no part 
In vender's deals. Embodiments that prey 
As crystalized conceptions bid us stay ! 
And tear to tattered bits life's earlier art. 

Cold critic ! Even the muse must feel your rod 
Of iron will, and measurements that fit 

Your mitred age : obedient to a nod 

From high opinion ! Shafts which hurled must hit 
The just and the unjust. To fathom it 

Behold ! Man prays to man in place of God ! 



55 



UNDERSTANDING 

" He that hath ears to hear let him hear." 

HAVE pity, Thou, for the unseeing eye ; — 
For him who, seeing, understandeth not. 
Oh, raise their insight to the perfect sky 

Of promised vision by the earth-bound sought ! 

Restore the sound attuned beyond the sense ; 

Re-string the hearing to Truth's highest tone ; 
Unto the faihng give Thou recompense 

For prayers unspoken, mighty deeds undone. 

Oh, lend compassion to the fettered mind, 

Groping and faltering on Life's winding way ; 

That thro' the sin-mist these at last may find 
The Path that leads unto the Perfect Day. 



SILHOUETTES 

(to dr. J. p. mccaskey) 

THE fading lights of evening fall ; 
Faint silhouettes of hours gone by 
Glide past, where their pale shadows lie. 
At darkening day's low call. 

Beyond the portal-ways of thought, 
Be^^ond the tender sense of dream. 
The mystic waves of memory seem 

To bear a vision fraught 

56 



With old-time places and their lure ; 
A lustral radiance drawing near 
Breathes of the self -same atmosphere 

That former scenes insure. 

Oh, Time, return and bring again 
The faces we were wont to see 
Held in Love's chastened sacristy, — 

The joy, and the sweet pain. 

The joys that mock me with their guile, 
The kisses vanished, but still dear ; — 
Their spectral shapes arise and wear 

Dead passion's haunting smile ! 

Oh, perfect days of love and life ! 
Oh, mystery that none may know. 
Of those who meet and part and go 

Beyond the tide of strife. 

In dreams I sail the Golden Sea ! 

Pale wraiths of forms draw near and pass 
Across the silent mirrored glass 

Toward Eternity! 



SPRING'S MIRACLE 

THE oriole swings on the topmost bough 
And chants his litany 
To Spring ; the tall pines cease to sough ; 
Buds peep out lovingly. 

57 



The great old world is brisk with breeze 

From sunrise till nightfall ; 
They have planned to decorate her trees 

And her gardens, each and all. 

The spirit of love and beauty shines 
In this earth-wide garlanding; 

The spirit of God in His work enshrines 
The miracle of Spring ! 



DAWN 

THE dawn's grey mist now dims the stars ; 
A crimson flush new-heralds day 
With prophecy and promise ; mars 

The night (pale ghost, stealing away !) 
Its luster banishes — disbars 

The lesser faiths that worship clay. 

A fiery radiance flames anew. 

And Truth is born in minds of men ! 

The light steals over Earth with hue 
Of opaline and gold, as when 

God first created man, and knew 
Eternal Law the victor then. 

(From The World Court.) 



58 



TILL DREAMS COME TRUE 

THE hills are fused with heaven 
And the fires of sunset-glow ; 
The substance and the shadow 

Meet where the roses blow ; 
The wild earth holds communion 

And kinship with the sky — 
The immemorial granite 

And heather-bloom, near by. 
And, half-discerned, a ghostly group 

Of dandelion heads 
There, seem to resurrect old dreams, 

As dusk the day-light weds. 

The night is made for dreaming 

Strewn with its silver stars 
And moonbeams, brightly gleaming. 

That swerve the sword of Mars. 
A brotherhood is breaking 

Across the earth again ; 
And love of kind is waking 

Within the hearts of men. 
A finer force is dawning 

More lasting than world-wars, 
And soon will come the morning 

Of victory for our cause! 

It would be always morning 
With sunshine in the heart. 

With hope and cheer, and not a fear, 
We play our daily part. 

59 



And we will do our dreaming 

Beneath the skies of blue, 
And work away through night and day 

Until our dreams come true. 



THE LITTLE COUNTRY COTTAGE 

(revtiille of night) 

JUST a little rustic cottage 
By the orchard's vine-wreathed wall, 
With the perfume of the wild flowers 
And the wandering night bird's call. 

Here a silvery rippling brooklet 

Sends the music of its song, 
With a melody and murmur, 

Through the meadows all day long. 

In the twilight strums a cricket 

Where the fire-flies sow their flame ; 

From the oak an owlet twitters ; 
Whippoorwill cries wild its name. 

Winds are whispering of beauty ; 

Fairies flit in drowsy dance ; 
And the stars above reflected 

Lie in pools of nee romance. 

On the porch we sit and listen 

To the music of the night ; 
In the little country cottage, 

In the shadowy moonlight. 
60 



And we sense a subtle presence 
That enshrouds the soul — a call 

From the mountains and the meadows- 
And the great God over all ! 
(Music by Florence Turner Maley.) 



TO A BIRD OF SONG 

SWEET singer of the untold melodies ! 
Warbled and trilled in many a wayside glen ; 
No varying note within thy tale, than when, 
In olden days, heard by Demosthenese. 
Sacred the source of song ; the wonder ke^^s 
Of minstrelsy vibrate the air again 
As flashing wrings soar far from haunts of men — 
To mingle with Heaven's higher harmonies. 

In Grecian glades — by ancient streams that run — 
There thou didst swell Aeolian lyres with song. 
The secrets of the infinite lie among 

The innumerable trysts thy throne of joy hath won. 
Thou art of the vast universe a part 
Even as I — born from the cosmic heart. 



61 



LA SUICIDIO 

I DID not know that I was dead ! 
White roses bloom about my head, 
And cahn hands clasp across my breast 
As friends come in their mourning dressed. 

I did not know the dead must lie 
So mute and cold as pride passed by ; 
That false tears shed, and forced smiles give 
The conqueror's claim to those who live. 

The dead may rise to realms on high 
Where sham and shame no more shall cry 
Their farewell forms of mockery ; 
Thank God that I, at last, am free ! 



SYMBOLS 

WHERE shall we look for the love that's dead? 
For the Summer day when the rose bloomed red. 
And the sun shone gaily overhead ? 

Can we claim anew the days that were.'^ 

With radiant thought our vision stir 

Of a dream long hushed in the world's loud whirr. 

God fashioned this as frail and fair 

As he fashions the flowers of field and air, 

And scatters their beauty everywhere. 

A maid was won with a princely pride ; 
All bright and brave the promised bride ; 
O fair, sweet face — that drooped and died. 

62 



The moon shone down on the cold earth-bed 

And a voice from the solemn silence said, 

" Come, dream with me of the love that's dead." 

Up from this mound of faith and trust 

A lily's sheath from the soil was thrust; — 

Spirit transcends both death and dust ! 

And there bloomed again — where the rose was red- 
A chastened lily of pearl instead; 
An emblem eternal of love not dead ! 
(From The Advance Sheet.) 



WHERE THE ROSES TWINE 

(iJf CALIFORNIA) 

NEW mornings dawn, but still I remember 
A love that lighted another year, 
By flowery fields of a rare September, 

By country lanes, when the skies were clear. 

We welcomed there the world as brother. 

Mid Beauty's glamour and gentle glow. 
In that sunset land we loved each other. 

In that summer-time of long ago ! 

Through the hush of night my heart goes dreaming 
Over the past and the peaceful pine ; 

And two rise out of the dream-mist, seeming 
To reunite where the roses twine ! 

(Music by Florence Maley.) , 

63 



IN MEMORIAM 

THE soul of one who vanished — 
His star shall guide my hand 
From the cool fields of Heaven, 
From a far lovelier land. 

I know the hallowed angels 
Communion to us grant; 

A subtle haunting presence 
Sings on in solemn chant. 

And summons me at evening 
When skies grow sombre, sweet. 

Within God's silent spaces. 

Where day and darkness meet. 

I hear a voice transcending 

Mortality, whose art 
Has risen from the shadows 

To shine — of light a part. 

And he who gave it listens 

In the anointed ways ; 
In some high chambered heaven 

Among the endless days. 

Beyond the broken altars, 

Beyond blind mammon's creeds 

His soul ascends, nor falters. 
Where love incessant leads. 



64 




J/cU,-/on St!i<i!<'s \f;>' y-'rA- 



CLARENCE de VAUX-ROVER 



DEPARTED 

''Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God 
is with thee whithersoever thou (/oesi/'— Joshua 5, 9. 

OH, he has gone to that far fair land, 
Gone undismayed ; 
And he will walk in that new rare land. 
Walk unafraid! 

And he will find bright flowers blooming — 

Not asphodels ; 
There is no death for love's consuming 

Where beauty dwells. 

For he was fair in word and token ; 

Strong for the right; 
He failed no pledge ; with vows unbroken 

He braved the fight. 

The roses droop ; the leaves fall sadly ; 

Hushed is all song. 
A voice within my heart rings madly — 

"'Twill not be long!" 

For we shall meet and know dear faces. 

Those passed before; 
Where God, in love, assigns our places 
Forevermore. 
(Clarence de Vaux-Royer entered the consciousness of Eternal 
Life, October 28, 1919, aged 45.) 



65 



TO ONE PASSED BEYOND 

NO more, then, no more tears ! 
Knowing beyond our vision, free, he stands ; 
The anguished call, the clinging touch of hands — 
Beyond Earth's fading years ! 



I yet will speak your name at eventide, — 

The hour you set, when souls may still commune — 
Listening to hear one faint familiar tune 

Of those you played — my secret grief to hide. 

They haunt my heart — the songs you treasured well ; 
And fitful echoes bring again to me 
Your wondrously wrought floods of melody — 

I turn the page ; love is too deep to tell ! 

To you who have ventured into the Unknown Vast, into the limit- 
less etheric spaces, do you not find all life as one in continuity — 
now, as you are nearing the outposts of Eternity? 

When we discussed the " wireless," the revelations to come and 
the essence called " life," we knew that the laws which exist today 
always have existed, although they only exist to us from the time 
we make them ours by recognition. 

Perception is the ultimate end of thought; and of our many 
queries and wonderings do you now perceive the Truth in its en- 
tirety, or only the foreshadowing? And are there further shores 
toward infinity that stretch beyond that on which you now stand? 
And is life then a frame within a frame — a vision within a vision 
— in multiplicity? These symbols of the mind are material; what 
are the symbols of the soul? 

You are but following the law that must achieve the thing that 
once was not, for man we know is a process, not an end. You 

66 



went, but left a murmur — as a shell tells phantom tales in mur- 
murings of the sea, once it inhabited on other shores of con- 
sciousness. 

And do the vibrations of our friendly memories resuscitate you 
there? Is God's vision now made visible to you — or are you held 
within the confines of your own beliefs and limitations, to grow 
wise gradually by training and degree, even as on Earth? You 
went after the Indian Summer time, when the air was full of the 
mist of parting, and the Earth bore a gentle regret for her losses, 
but in the ebb and flow of nature we know it will all return again. 
You may, too, be sleeping, but when you awaken within the Gates 
of Light, may God make it a happy dawn for you. 

And there shall you be made whole of sorrow, 

Have no more care ; 
No troubled thought of the coming morrow 

Or days that were. 



67 



3IY HEART A LUTE 

THE wintry winds grow mournful as they pass 
Above my head; 
I do not heed the f aUing leaves — alas ! 
For Love is dead ! 

The human chords attune an instrument — 

The heart a lute ! 
Play on sweet Life ! thy message God's intent — 

(Let pain be mute!) 

We cannot bear the silences ; the soul 

Its burden breaks ; 
It breathes its anguish and its high control 

Old flame awakes. 

We are as flowers, that blossom here on earth, 

Fade and depart ; 
They bloom in beauty — transient hour of birth — 

Oh, aching heart ! 

And is there not some solace left — or given — 

When Love is slain? 
With brave " farewell " we pra}^ to meet in Heaven, 

Healed of the pain. 



68 



LOVE'S SUNSET 

AROSE ATE glow heralds Night ! 
In the hour of darkest despair, 
One soul beams on, scintillant, bright, 
To lighten the lone cares of Night; 

One the star-broidered Heaven holds fair. 
(The star-broidered Heaven holds fair.) 

Faint echoes of song and of sighs, 
Bear dreams of delight unto me : 

Bring visions where love never dies — 

But lives in the lure of her eyes 

Like the gold of the sun on the sea. 
(The gold of the sun on the sea.) 

Did Beauty have birth in Cathay ? 

Crown Capri's cerulean sea.^ 
Is it fairer in Heaven than May 
When together through flower-fields we stray 

Together forever to be ? 

(Forever and ever to he?) 

A cold wind blew in from the west ; 

A cold wave rose out of the sea 
And blighted the love in my breast. 
She went with the sun to her rest — 

Far, far from the world and from me! 

(Far from the world and from me!) 

69 



At sunset, when silence greets sound, 

A mist shrouds the earth and the sea; 
Then I'll welcome my lost there refound. 
Where the past and its voices resound, 
On the shores of Eternity ! 
(The shores of Eternity !) 
(Music by Clarence de Vaux-Royer.) 



CONSTANCY 

AFTER the Summer roses are dead, 
And merry-winged singing birds have fled, 
And you and I by the window-pane 

Stand watching the pitiless, ceaseless rain. 
I look within, and I thank God then 

That out of His countless creation of mep. 
One soul stands firm, unchanging and true, 

That shines as a light from the vaults of blue. 
To temper the days and years ahead : — 
After the Summer roses are dead. 
(Music by Clarence de Vaux-Royer.) 



HE IS RISEN 

WE all will pass the slumber-shore. 
Where the cypress sorrows evermore ; 
We all will lie in the lap of life 
Till time has quenched the burning strife. 
70 



Christ said, " In three days I shall rise ! " 
And cast the doubt from weeping eyes. 

Calm science shows the battling creeds 
To follow man's design. Who reads 
From Nature's tale — intuitive — 
Knows naught is lost, that all must live. 

Go, rest in peace ! Each soul a part 

Of God's great plan in the cosmic heart. 



o 



THE MULBERRY-TREE 

(to clarence) 

H the mulberry-tree ! the mulberry-tree ! 

That brings back the vision of boyhood to me. 

When far from the city and worn marts of men 
It cheers me with memory's music again. 

Where fields are all ripe with the soft-blowing grain 
And the quail sounds its whistle — a challenge for rain. 

The grace of a day near forgotten comes back 
To cancel the years in time's endless track. 

The robin and woodpecker, swallow and wren. 
Sing now in its branches the same song as then. 

Their melody rings in a heart once more free 
By the mulberry-tree — dear mulberry-tree. 



71 



A 



THEN FLL COME BACK TO YOU 

S the first ray of morn 
Breaks from the night, 
So is man's spirit born 

Into the bright 
Immortal world above 
Back to the goal of love, 
Into the light. 

Death's fatal, fair caress 

The door unbars ; 
One moment's perfectness 

Beneath the stars: 
The voices of the spheres 
Sing softly through the years — 

No sound that mars. 

Like night's low whispering. 

Crystal and fair; 
Lulled where bird-vespers cling 

Upon the air; 
Held in the hazy mist 
Of memory's fond tryst — 

Our lost are there. 

Day's glamour fades and goes ; 

A shimmering track 
Wavers at dusk and glows, — 

Grows sombre — black. 
" Then I'll come back to you 
In the soft twilight's dew. 

Then I'll come back ! " 
72 



LOSS AND GAIN 

" There is no death; ivhat seems so is transition! " 
^ ^ ^"^"^ UR friend is lost ! " we often say ; 



O' 



But naught above — beneath the sod 
Is lost. The soul will seek its God, 
Severed in love from form of clay, 
He knows, and His the eternal way ; 

The way that one and all have trod, 
With promise that we meet some day. 

Some day we'll wake with sweet surprise, 
And know those thought afar are near. 
The days grown desolate and drear 

Will brightly dawn to gladdened eyes ; 

As when rain falls from saddened skies 

The afterglow is made more clear; 

So loyal heart, let hope arise. 
(From The Progressive Thinker.) 



THE IMMORTAL BEAD 

^ ^ (~^ OME ! dream in my arms," carols death ; 

V-V (There freedom will meet you.) 
Come ! breathe deeply once of my breath ; 

(No passion will greet you.) 
Come, conquerors ! wreaths wait for your head ; 

(Immortal we crowned you.) 
Come ! live in the world where the dead 

Sweep silently 'round you. 

73 



SPRING 

(life) 

BLOSSOMING! blossoming! 
With all its might ; 
Budding in rainbow tints 

Out of the night ; 
Up through the soil of things 
Into the light. 



FALL 

(death) 

SHEDDING its leaves again, 
. _ Dropped into earth — 
Gone is the beauteous sheen, 

Lost now its mirth; 
Mourning the tribute then 
Of a new birth. 



THE LAW 

OH ! Who can call the red rose back 
When its last flower is fled.^^ 
And who would walk the crimson track 
Of life when love is dead? 

74' 



Down in a gentle garden's dusk 

I saw the dew unfold, 
From barren bush and bed of musk, 

The fragrant blooms of old. 

The essence there withm them lies, 
The spirit that God gives ; 

Naught perishes ; love never dies ; 
Love is the Law — and lives. 



AUX AMES BIEN NEE 

(les artistes) 

No chart nor compass made for these I find ; 
But as the roaming, restless, flippant breeze 

Provokes to bloom the buds of springtime trees 
And flings their wealth of color on the wind ; 

Casting these peerless petals in a shower, 

Held imaged and perfected by a power 
That caught with brush and canvas the refined 

Perpetuated vision: — the desire 
Of each brave mariner of the high seas 

Of art ! Bold dreamers who aspire — 
Cold frozen peaks have warmed to life, and these 

Imbued with magic of the divine fire 
That flashed from God into the artist's mind. 



75 



THE LIGHT BEYOND 

WHEN twilight tints the misty peaks 
A voice long-stilled unto us speaks ; 
And memories gather close and fond, 
Led by the lure of the light beyond ! 

There are faces that we fain would greet — 
Faces grown old, and fair and sweet — 
That link the present's golden thread 
With the unrevealed of the years ahead. 

In the dark of night, w^hen the great world sleeps. 
And thought lies silent within the deeps. 
Then our dead return in a mist of dreams, 
And counsel us till the new day gleams. 

As we travel on 'twixt smile and tear. 
What once seemed far, now measures near. 
The years grow less and friends more fond, 
Led by the lure of the Light Beyond ! 



APRIL'S MUSIC 

BLOSSOMS, blossoms everywhere! 
In the earth and in the air ; 
Colored flame and opal fires 

Burning with their brief desires. 



76 



Bluebirds whirr and sing again 

In their sky-tinged splendor. Wren, 

Thrush, and robin's matinee 
Thrill the hillside all the day. 

Through the evening's amethyst — 
Echoing in a golden mist — 

Tinkle the clear waters falling ; 
Kindling stars are faintly calling. 

Beauty born of murmuring sound 
Weaves its witchery around; 

Wandering voices fill the air — 
April's music, everywhere! 

Lancaster, Pa., April, 1919. 



TWILIGHT SHADOWS 

TWILIGHT shadows stealing round us. 
Shroud our senses to beguile ; 
Ancient memories here have found us 
Wrapped in reverie for awhile. 

Calling to us friends and faces. 
That were dear in days of yore ; 

Twilight shades of lingering graces 
Hover round the open door. 

77 



Boughs in blossom bend and beckon 

Silently their shadow-wings ; 
And my heart's mad riots reckon 

With the Past, that sobs and sings. 

Hushed the wind with soft caresses ; 

Star-mist crowns the jewelled air; 
What the fond heart here confesses, 

I alone may know and share. 

Light loves pass with shine and shimmer. 
Gold now glints the azure east; 

Night's new passion spent, with glimmer 
Of old fancies at life's feast. 



ALL THAT PERISHETH SHALL LIVE 

TWISTED and curled upon the ground 
The dead leaves lie; 
The sparrow sends his twittering sound 

From haunts on high ; 
And the wind moans in plaintive round 
Pitilessly. 

The rain folds in a pearly mist 

The shimmering trees ; 
Their crimson etchings, once cloud-kist. 

The coy winds tease; 
Here Autumn's artist holds high tryst 

As Summer flees. 
78 



All grey and empty is the sky 

And drear as doom ! 
But in the mold and rootlets lie 

New bud and bloom 
Where Nature's beating heart will vie 

With Resurrection's tomb ! 



RESTORATION 

ALL the day you have been near me, 
Like an echo that has found 
In some faint reverberation 

Lost for long, a kindred sound ; 
Or a voice once trilled to music, 

Out of silence vague and dim. 
Now rejoicing, newly gladdened, 

By some radiant morning hymn ; — 
Or with memory of a June-time 

Fresher than the early dew 
Held in lily bell-cups, swaying 

On the hillside ; so are you ! 
So you conjure to my fancy 

Reminiscent days of charm. 
When we lived in faery glamour 

Innocent of fear's alarm. 

Birds were singing, boughs were budding, 

And I long again to see 
All the rosy warmth and gladness 

That those memories bring to me. 
79 



Tell again the old, old story ; 

Whisper, Voices, if the while 
My fond heart is breaking, breaking 

For the living word and smile 
I once knew in Love's sweet springtime, 

Knew and loved without regret; 
Knew in God's own image perfect. 

One my soul can ne'er forget. 
Flowing to thee as a river 

Flows beneath the stars and sun, 
Ever onward and forever. 

Toward the great eternal One ! 

Oh, that love! its joy and sadness — 

Mingled rue and roses bloom ! 
Voiced in music, mute with madness, 

While Love's altar-fires consume! 
Love, the universal essence. 

Comes and goes, and comes again, 
To and fro a vital presence 

Hedged about by laws of men. 
I shall know you, spirit, ever. 

And my soul with yours entwine. 
Though the Cosmic chain shall sever — 

For the finding made you mine! 
Love lives on in human places, 

Where our human feet have trod, 
While our hungering hearts and faces 

Crave the shining peaks of God! 

80 



When the lutes are playing softly, 
And the lights are burning low, 

Then I seek your star in heaven- 
Woo a dream of long ago; 

And in fancy hear you calling ! 
Calling ! and I see your face, 

Feel your arms about me falling. 
Folding me in close embrace ! 

And I whisper to the silence : 
" Kiss me once before you go I " 

And the echo of that whisper 
Is the only sound I know 1 

***** 



A DREAM 

THE CROWN OF LIFE 

MoxDAY Night, May 17, 1917. 
(After reading Ecclesiastes by Solomon.) 

I climbed and climbed the highest trestle-like structure to the 
very top-most height. This structure was higher than any build- 
ing or monument ever built by man. When ascending I was con- 
scious of a huge crowd watching me with keen interest, and at the 
same time devotion or sympathy, and a desire that I should win. 
When I arrived at the very summit I was made conscious of the 
fact that I had already won, before hand, two trophies, or vic- 
torious prizes; i.e.— a large silver cup and a larger gold one. The 
summit of this structure upon which I stood was only about three 
feet by two and one-half feet. Then a most beautiful gold crown, 
immense in size, at least a foot and some inches in height was 
placed upon my head from out the invisible, or as if from above. 

Immediately the material structure began to rock, up and down 
and side ways like a modern scales, when things are thrown upon 

81 



it for weight. I then lost my balance sufficiently, so that the 
crown fell from my head. I witnessed the consternation among the 
great crowd of people below, who thought that I had purposely 
thrown the great crown, with its valuable diamonds, rubies, emer- 
alds and other precious stones (of immense size) away. After 
losing the crown, beautiful and valuable as it was, I felt a great 
spiritual upliftment and relief from material things, accom- 
panied by such a heavenly peace of mind, that I threw the other 
two prizes (cups) after the crown, which caused still more agita- 
tion and condemnation for me from the crowd below. I then dis- 
covered a wide white marble stairway, winding round and round 
to the bottom. I ran and ran and ran down this, oh so fast, not 
stopping to answer the questions on the way about the crown, from 
people who came out at different points of the descent. When I 
arrived on the Earth, I went still farther down into a basement- 
like place, where was seated my wife, cold and distant. With her 
were Markham and many other notable people. I said to my wife, 
"Is this a time to be cold and condemning? Didn't you know it 
was an acident? " Whereupon they all advanced toward me, and 
Markham took my hand and said, " I am so glad, we all thought 
you threw the crown away." 



AMEN 
(Signed) Clarence de Vaux-Royer. 



628 W. 139th Street, 
New York City. 



82 



TRIBUTES 

One day when I was a very little boy ... my father, Andrew 
John Kauffman, took me ... to hear a violinist, a boy not much 
older than I was. He said that we were going to hear him now 
and that some day we would surely hear a great deal of him. . . . 

I don't remember what the place looked like, nor even how the 
musician looked, for, the moment he began to play, all my other 
senses blended into the sense of hearing — and how he played I 
shall never forget. He was Clarence de Vaux-Royer. 

As we came away, my father said : " That boy is your cousin ; 
the day will come when you will be proud of it." 

The day did come, and, although Clarence Royer has now passed, 
my pride in him has not passed. It grew year by year, as his art 
grew, and it will remain as long as my memory endures. 

Royer interpreted beauty to an ugly world, and his interpreta- 
tion was creative. He made music in the silence of life and har- 
mony of our hearts' discord. He has left us the sadder for his 
going, but he took with him a soul all music to play its part in the 
anthem that shall never cease. I think of him as a musician on his 
way from a little orchestra to a great, and I think of that prayer 
from the Divine Liturgy of St. John the Goldenmouthed, as it is 
read in the Holy Eastern Orthodox (the Graeco-Russian) Church: 

" Give him rest, O our God ! Give him rest in a quiet place, a 
pleasant place, where there is neither sorrow nor mourning . . . 
and grant him finally a sure defense before the dread tribunal of 
Christ." 

Reginald Wright KAUFrMAN. 

24th February, 1920. 

From The Critic (New York Musical Journal). 

Mr. de Vaux-Royer was a man of very fine distinctions and 
charming personality, with Wagnerian nose and Byronic chin, and 
during his days in Paris he wore his hair a-la-Mozart — in ringlets 
over his collar. His friends were legion. He sang in three lan- 
guages, having been tenor for the Empress Friedrich Church, in 
Berlin, and also one of the prominent churches in Paris. 

During his fifteen years in New York he was associated on the 
musical staif of the Church of the Heavenly Rest, All Angels 



Church, St. Bartholomew's and many others. He was in every 
sense a true artist, and consecrated his life to music, holding it 
above price. His high aims and noble spirit promiDted him to give 
his music to charitable institutions and individual charities, and 
responded to innumerable demands. 

Biographical data of Mr. de Vaux-Royer appeared in Grove's 
Musical Dictionary, The Musical Blue Book, Who's Who in Amer- 
ica and in The Genealogy of the Schumann Family. 

His lectures before universities and The Board of 
Education were written on The Composers of the Nation, 
but his great work was as concert artist — Violin Soloist 
— and he was known with honor over twelve countries of 

the world. 

Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 28, 1919. 
The end of earth has come to Clarence, and soon will come to 
all of us. What is the deep mystery that lies so near us, and all 
the while j ust ahead ? We are glad to have been born, glad to have 
lived, and, I think, the experience of all good souls when they have 
passed beyond is that they are glad to have died. Let us look with 
grateful hearts, it may be through tears. He was kind and wished 
well to all about him. He toiled manfully at his appointed work 
and attained eminence in it. He was never strong in physique, and 
lies down to sleep very tired, but with hope of to-morrow. May 
he who giveth his beloved sleep give that glad rest to him and you 
and all of us. 

Dr. J. P. McCaskey. 

. . . The length of life depends not upon years but upon our 
service to humanity. 

Mr. Royer's life was one of service and cheer to all who knew 
him. 

We mourn his departure as our loss, but his spirit will live 
forever. 

(Dr.) J. Gardner Smith. 

(Over five hundred tributes from devoted and distinguished 
friends were received, all worthy of space here.) 

84 



For C. de V.-R. 

Extol his valour, Earth! Let all revere 
The memory of his song, and lofty ways; 
So men may grow in wisdom thro' his praise 
And life be sweeter since we knew him here! 

Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff. 
March 31, 1930. 



Pre-eminent in his profession Mr. de Vaux-Royer not only ex- 
celled as concert artist but had written and delivered seven illus- 
trated lectures on the comjDOsers and music of the seven principal 
musical countries of the world. He was director of his orchestra 
and the De Vaux-Royer Quartette, and of latter years composer, 
having been educated in Europe under the greatest living masters. 

Errata: Page 83, line 19, word should read "accident." 



A DREAM INTERVIEW 

Last night I experienced a wonderfully realistic dream interview 
with ray dear husband, who passed from mortal to the immortal 
plane two months ago. We were together in a very old house of 
Revolutionary period (standing when my father bought his coun- 
try estate with 500 acres surrounding it). We were at the top and 
he was hewing his way out with an axe. (These symbols are given 
in dream visions where language fails.) The timber was of very 
heavy beams, with board upon board nailed over, as though by 
each generation, all bearing labels, viz.: "Creeds," "Traditions," 
" Smothered Aspirations," " Deranged Ideals," etc., and he slashed 
at them all. I said, " You are not strong. You must not do that." 
He replied, " I have Eternal Life, and I must do this to live in the 
open sunlight of Truth. That is what the human race needs today 
for growth, mental and physical, not to be hedged around by false 
and antiquated conceptions. To know that man himself is a respon- 
sible agent and his own builder. My life was hampered by false 
teachings. Your institutions may be ' a way unto,' but if you do 
not branch out bigger than the Institution you will not arrive, but 
be hidden under the name — in the letter. It is the emancipated 
Spirit that builds for progress. Some smug corner of soft conces- 
sion in a church does not constitute Christianity, or save the soul, 
or save anything. Your growth is arrested. Sleepers, awake! I 
have found no golden streets or great white throne here, but plenty 
of work to be done (you cannot get away from that), but under a 
finer and clearer atmosphere. Thought is the thing! Train your 
faculties." 

Then I tried to raise an old window of small panes of glass, 
grown green and mossy and dim, securely fastened, so that nothing 
should escape its bondage or filter in. But time had loosened its 
setting; yet I was fearful and put the old fastening back with a 
sacrilegious feeling. 

He bounded through the structure he had liberated himself from 
and I followed. He said, " You were right. Rose; you have a great 
work before you. Half the musty books should be burned and re- 
placed by new ideas." 

Then as I looked around I saw the two beautiful maples of my 
Father's place (that I have not visited for 18 years) overshadowing 
a scene, natural but not earthly, as it was radiant with a strange 

85 



light — a luminous glamour. There stood a family group that 
seemed familiar, but only one advanced to meet me — my dear 
Mother, natural, but ultrarefined. And a lamb came up and placed 
his forefeet, crossed, into my hand in loving greeting, so gentle, 
without fear, and of human expression, as though one of the family 
• — all in harmony. Then the light faded gradually as the beautiful 
landscape and setting disappeared from view before I could greet 
the others assembled. This is one of several impressions I have 
received since he passed over. — From the Washington News Letter. 

There is one Mind common to all individual men. Every man is 
an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once ad- 
mitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. 
What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he 
may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can under- 
stand. Who hath access to this Universal Mind, is a party to all 
that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent. — 
Emerson. 



86 



SOUL SHADOWS, SONGS AND 
SONNETS 



ROSE M. DE VAUX-ROYER 

(With portrait of the author) 

PARAGRAPHS FROM THE PRESS 

Some views and reviews of prominent people 

"Your songs have delicacy and alluring melody:'— Edwin 
Markham. 

" Your poems are full of messages to the soul of humanity, and 
I find a quality of spirituality pervading them seldom found in 
books of modern verse." — Madison Cawein. 

" I am particularly impressed with the high purpose and motive 
the poems give evidence of, on the part of their author. '—Ralph 
Waldo Trine. 

"If you have expressed what some one else feels— that one will 
get your book. Put my name down for two hooks."— Ella Wheeler 
Wilcox. 

"Your poetry is refined, lofty, deep, and musical, the touching 
voice of an Aeol's harp on which Ariel plays with his flower-like 
fingers. In the midst of materialistic American society, a soul like 
yours is a national blessing. Your life work means idealism and 
you are the incarnation of this noble tendency."— Dr. Max Nordau. 

■• I congratulate you that you have been able to imprison in verse 
so much of the loveliness of nature and \ife.''—Clinton Scollard. 

"Always the poems contain hints of something just beyond- 
suggested— this more secret loveliness whose presence haunts every 
page. The essence of your poetry is the optimism of the spirit." 
—John Hall Wheelock. 

" I find a philosophical flame throbbing through your soul poems 
—a musical rhythm which fascinates."— /fomer N. Bartlett. 

" Lofty in tone and refined in expression her verse shows true 
poetic insight and fee\mg.''—Light, London, W. C. 

87 



" I have been reading your very charming volume with profit and 
pleasure. It does credit to everyone concerned — author, artist, 
printer and binder." — Elbert Hubbard. 

"No appreciative reader can lay down the volume without feel- 
ing that through some occult power in the lines he has absorbed a 
radiant spiritual uplift." — Overland Monthly, Calif. 

" Under the title ' Soul Shadows ' Rose M. de Vaux-Royer issues 
a volume of her songs and sonnets, many of which have been pub- 
lished previously in magazines and papers. 

" The sonnet ' Within,' written in Paris, is dedicated to Francois 
Coppee."— iY. Y. World. 

" In ' Soul Shadows,' by Rose M. de Vaux-Royer, we find a nice 
fancy, at times eloquent and musical. They all show an earnest- 
ness and genuine inspiration. 

" ' Memory's Visions ' reveals a rare depth and philosophic 
fervor, and ' Calling ' is a breathless, fervent little paean." — The 
Internationa]. 

" I like your lines on Edwin Markham, and I see by his comment 
that he also likes them. I am glad to see that your poetic marks- 
manship has hit that big Bull Muse." — Hudson Maxim. 

" Your poems are a noble work : virile and full of exalting 
images." — Blanche S. Wagstaf. 

" I find your poems almost beyond my criticism. You are too 
true — too elusive; you must be studied if one sees the beauty of 
your lines." — Marqaret Holmes Bates. 



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